This was fascinating. I don't agree with all of what you said, but you said it all well!
I love the show, still, though Season One is still my favorite. I'm not a big fan of mytharcs, actually, and the naturally-occurring angst of Daddy-abandoned-Dean-why? and OMG-Sammy-wants-to-leave was all I needed in addition to the MotW episodes. Frankly, I LIKE MotW. I don't understand other people's issues with it-- in many ways, the L&O franchise (still going strong, all these years later) is a MotW format where the monster is a case.
I'm of mixed feelings about the female characters, given that their roles are usually to provide T&A (of which I and many other women are not fans). Jo was a Mary-Sue who had no purpose other than (originally) to be another sexual conquest for Dean. By contrast, her mother had backstory and the female fans loved her. However, she didn't fit the 18-25 male demographic that networks always pander to. Ruby 1.0 was far more interesting than I would have expected, but Ruby 2.0 is a dreadful actress so now what? Bela... was a sociopath, so not very likeable (which is fine-- oh how we loved to hate Gordon!). Missouri never came back, even on the telephone, and so she lives on only in fanfiction.
Your characterization of Shiban and Gamble as writers was amusing (fangirls love Sera to death, but I'm not always thrilled with her scripts). Ben Edlund brings the creepy, but he also brings the misogyny and the T&A, so he definitely isn't one of my favorites. OTOH, the S3 premiere was written by Kripke and it pretty much sucked.
When backed financially into a one-set corner on Angel, the writers put the lead characters on a submarine in World War II, squeezed every last drop out of their imaginations, and created one of the most memorable episodes in television. Hmmm, here I disagree quite strongly. To me, that was one of the most craptastic episodes of "Angel" ever, which boiled down to "It'd be funny to put Spike and Angel in Nazi suits." Now, the Puppet-Angel episode? For me, that one was genius, though for others it was WTF garbage. But your point that production values are often less-important than writing quality is well-taken.
Really, I applaud you just for an entirely different and very fresh view on Eric. And if he continues to focus on estranging Sam and Dean rather than their bromance (which is a huge part of why I watch the show), then the reason for it becomes clear with this meta: he has no larger plan, and sometimes he flails off in the wrong direction.
I love the show, still, though Season One is still my favorite. I'm not a big fan of mytharcs, actually, and the naturally-occurring angst of Daddy-abandoned-Dean-why? and OMG-Sammy-wants-to-leave was all I needed in addition to the MotW episodes. Frankly, I LIKE MotW. I don't understand other people's issues with it-- in many ways, the L&O franchise (still going strong, all these years later) is a MotW format where the monster is a case.
I'm of mixed feelings about the female characters, given that their roles are usually to provide T&A (of which I and many other women are not fans). Jo was a Mary-Sue who had no purpose other than (originally) to be another sexual conquest for Dean. By contrast, her mother had backstory and the female fans loved her. However, she didn't fit the 18-25 male demographic that networks always pander to. Ruby 1.0 was far more interesting than I would have expected, but Ruby 2.0 is a dreadful actress so now what? Bela... was a sociopath, so not very likeable (which is fine-- oh how we loved to hate Gordon!). Missouri never came back, even on the telephone, and so she lives on only in fanfiction.
Your characterization of Shiban and Gamble as writers was amusing (fangirls love Sera to death, but I'm not always thrilled with her scripts). Ben Edlund brings the creepy, but he also brings the misogyny and the T&A, so he definitely isn't one of my favorites. OTOH, the S3 premiere was written by Kripke and it pretty much sucked.
When backed financially into a one-set corner on Angel, the writers put the lead characters on a submarine in World War II, squeezed every last drop out of their imaginations, and created one of the most memorable episodes in television.
Hmmm, here I disagree quite strongly. To me, that was one of the most craptastic episodes of "Angel" ever, which boiled down to "It'd be funny to put Spike and Angel in Nazi suits." Now, the Puppet-Angel episode? For me, that one was genius, though for others it was WTF garbage. But your point that production values are often less-important than writing quality is well-taken.
Really, I applaud you just for an entirely different and very fresh view on Eric. And if he continues to focus on estranging Sam and Dean rather than their bromance (which is a huge part of why I watch the show), then the reason for it becomes clear with this meta: he has no larger plan, and sometimes he flails off in the wrong direction.
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